Chapter 1 Japan in the Pacific War and New Guinea Tanaka Hiromi 27 Japan in the Pacific War and New Guinea any Japanese view the Second World War as a conflict between Japan and the MUS that began at Pearl Harbor. There is a tendency to downplay the significance of the actual role of Australia in the war. However, the battles fought in New Guinea and surrounding areas were conducted between Japan and US–Australian allied forces. The role of Australian forces in these battles far exceeds the general Japanese understanding of the events. Of the three battles in the Pacific War which resulted in the great loss of Japanese life, namely those in New Guinea, Burma and the Philippines, surprisingly it is New Guinea that is of least interest in Japan. This apathy suggests that there has been no steady research into the reasons for the campaigns in New Guinea, why it was so miserable, or how it related to the passage of the war in general. It is a fact that, aside from Professor Kondo Shinji, there has been no research in Japan into these issues. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an academic conference held in Japan on the topic of the war in New Guinea. Consequently, the opening of the Remembering the war in New Guinea symposium, with Japanese researchers and their esteemed Australian colleagues, was perhaps a bold undertaking. It is to be hoped it will stimulate more interest in the war in New Guinea amongst the Japanese. For all intents and purposes Japan began the war in 1937 against China and pursued Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese army southward. Since the middle of the 19th century, the southern Chinese region surrounding Yanzi Jiang had been the centre of interest for foreign powers. There were concerns that conflict with the West would arise if Japan approached this region. At that time the US and England clearly indicated a position of aid for China and began to supply materiel to Chiang Kai-shek. In order to cut off these supply routes, the Japanese army gradually penetrated southward into French Indo- China, resulting in increased American opposition. US and Japanese trade relations, which were the lifeline of the Japanese economy, were severed, leaving in turmoil both the supply of iron and oil, essential for war preparations, and the importation of other Japanese troops cross a stream during their invasion of Malaya raw materials. in January 1942. By March nearly all of south-east Asia and its rich natural resources had fallen to the Japanese. 28 [Chapter 1] Japan in the Pacific War and New Guinea 29 Japan, isolated and cornered, plunged headlong into conflict with America, England and the Netherlands in December 1941 as a means of procuring essential raw materials. The Malay Peninsula and Indonesia were rich in crude oil, bauxite, nickel, iron ore, tin and rubber, and for this reason were termed the “southern resource belt”. The initial policy was to secure these regions as colonies, then seek peace and an end to the war. According to Japanese naval strategic planning from about 1930 a weakened US Navy would retreat to Hawaii after initial engagements. There they would regroup before mounting an offensive against the Philippines. The Japanese navy planned to mount repeated raids en route, thus provoking the weakened US fleet into a decisive battle in the vicinity of the Philippines. It would be a triumph as decisive as the victory in the Japan Sea during the Russo–Japanese War. Even after the emergence of the new plan to occupy the southern resource belt, there was little alteration to the existing strategic plan. It is no exaggeration to say that the development of the war, apart from the main engage- ments in the Philippines, was unexpected for both Japan and the US. The main reason for this unexpected outcome was that General MacArthur escaped from the Philippines not to Hawaii, but to Brisbane in Australia, and used the region (including New Zealand) as a strategic base to wage his counter-offensive. Japan, expecting the American forces to return to Hawaii, had not considered facing an attack from a US–Australian allied force based in Australia. The significance of this unexpected turn of events was that Japan lacked information on the geography, politics, economy and military strength of the region. This basic lack of vital information was illustrated in 1942 by the difficulties faced by Vice Admiral Nagumo’s task force attacking Darwin using nautical charts of the Arafura Sea without depth mark- ings. The Japanese navy, which was based on Truk Island, held a deep interest in New Guinea and the Solomons. Surveys of water passages and the topography of New Guinea and the surrounding islands had been conducted by the Naval Hydrographic Office from 1933–38 using foreign publications and charts. They published numerous volumes outlining weather conditions, ocean currents, water depth and coastal terrain. These, however, did not comment on internal social or economic conditions. The army, on the other hand, had hastily conducted surveys just prior to the outbreak of war, on the ability of the southern resource belt to provide resources for military materiel. However, it appears that these surveys did not include New Guinea. In any case, maps captured 30 [Chapter 1] Japan in the Pacific War and New Guinea 31 from the Dutch and Australian armies, and maps drawn from reconnaissance photo- graphs provided some understanding of local conditions. Local maps demonstrate that occupying New Guinea and the Solomons was necessary in order to enforce a blockade of military supply routes from the US to Australia and to prevent the expected Allied counter-attack from the south. The navy based on Truk, wanted to occupy and control New Guinea and the surrounding islands. Even the occu- pation of Rabaul, which was used as a base for the invasion of New Guinea and the Solomons, was pushed through by the navy, despite opposition from the army, for the purpose of preventing Allied air raids on Truk. The strategy to invade Port Moresby was also promoted by the navy to increase the defensive position at Rabaul. The army had dominated the war in China, so the advance south into the resource belt of the Pacific was approached like a campaign on a giant land mass. New Guinea and the Solomons were a distant unknown quantity. Consequently, the army adopted a passive stance concerning operations promoted by the navy in that area. In 1942, the navy made preparations for the Mo Operation, the occupation of Port Moresby, and the FS Opera- tion, an invasion of Samoa, Fiji and New Caledonia which aimed to block the supply route between the US and the Australian mainland. However, the naval defeats in the Coral Sea and at Midway left the Japanese extremely weakened in the region. The direct Allied counter-offensive began with the landings at Guadalcanal and Tulagi. In addition, the Allied forces, under the command of MacArthur, were advancing north along the “MacArthur axis”, which ran from Bougainville, the northern coastline of New Guinea, the Philippines, Okinawa and then on to mainland Japan. Meanwhile, the US navy and naval units were approaching Japan by the “Nimitz axis” which ran from the Gilbert Islands, the Marshall Islands and the Mariana Islands. The Second World War in east Asia and the western Pacific consisted of three cam- paigns of differing motives and locations, namely the war in China, the war to procure primary resources in the south, and the war in the western Pacific. The opponents in each of these theatres were also different: the Chinese in China, the English, Australian and Dutch primarily in the southern resource belt and the Americans in the western Pacific. Japan had become bogged down in the war in China at a time when national resources were weakening. It then began both the campaign to secure natural resources in the south and the unexpected war in the western Pacific. Japan had to distribute its military 32 [Chapter 1] Japan in the Pacific War and New Guinea 33 capability and resources, which were inferior to the Allies, over three expansive theatres of operation. The Allied forces had no reason to become involved in China and had no need to secure resources and so concentrated their superior numbers and materiel in the western Pacific. Consequently, there was a significant difference in actual strength between the two sides. The battles from Guadalcanal to New Guinea developed into a war of attrition that the Japanese had hoped to avoid due to their limited military strength and manufacturing capacity. It cannot be overstated that the relative merits of conducting a similar war of attrition in the western Pacific were not determined by manufacturing capacity but by the ability to transport supplies by sea over such long distances. The limits of the Japa- nese army’s supply capabilities had been reached in the Guadalcanal campaign, though there were sufficient resources to evacuate surviving units. In 1943, however, it was determined that even if an Allied land campaign towards Rabaul was imminent, there was no possibility of a Japanese withdrawal and units in Rabaul would therefore be abandoned. Although postwar Western commentators often say that the Japanese mili- tary glorified the destruction of its army, the fact is that withdrawal in such a situation, if possible, was the army’s preferred course of action. The Japanese army’s choice of anni- hilation over withdrawal during the war occurred where units were stranded on islands without either transport or room to withdraw.